ABSTRACT
Medieval Muslim Spain – referred to as “Moorish Spain” in English, al-Andalus in Arabic, and Sepharad in Hebrew – left a rich cultural heritage in agriculture, art, architecture, gardening, medicine, mysticism, philosophy, poetry, the physical sciences, urban planning, and other realms. The study of the music of al-Andalus and of medieval Iberian culture in general, is also trapped in another matrix, one that tends to approach all cultural phenomena through the lens of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Music is, or at least was until the advent of audio-recordings, relentlessly ephemeral. The reference to the “musical heritage” of al-Andalus is in part meant to indicate both that there are modern musical traditions rooted in this period of time and that we in fact know very little about the actual music of al-Andalus. In English there is a single adjectival form – “andalusian” – for both al-Andalus and the modern province of southern Spain, Andalucía.
